Life Insurance: 7 Myths About Life Insurance
The very best time to arrange life insurance is when it’s furthest from your thoughts. Take a typical young man. He’s at the start of his career, possibly still living at home, but thinking of looking around for a flat. He has a car and the insurance that he arranged for it was probably his first step in the insurance ladder.
You need to choose the life insurance that is right for you. You can do so by avoiding these seven common myths:Myth #1: You should buy seven times your annual earnings.The rule of thumb that says you should have so many times your annual income isn’t necessarily true. The average American has a policy three times his or her annual income. Your dependents should be able to withdraw 5% each year from your insurance policy money without having to touch the principal. If you are making $60,000 annually and you purchase three times your annual income, you have an $180,000 policy. This means your heirs will only be able to withdraw $9,000 each year.
Whilst life insurance is designed to pay out to your beneficiaries if you die, CI cover will give you valuable support if you become critically ill. For our young man, starting on his career, an illness of this type could be a financial disaster. It is a fact that one in three people will develop cancer at some time in their lives, but the good news is that treatment and cure rates are improving all the time.
Myth #2: Agents don’t give you the best deals, the internet does.The internet is a great place to shop and research life insurance. But don’t assume that you’ve gotten the lowest price just because it’s the internet. Good agents will find a competitive rate that’s comparable to your online quotes.Often, the premiums posted on internet sites are misleading. They are usually quoting you are rate that only those in the healthiest of conditions receive. They may give you an initial rate that will increase significantly in a year.You can’t just compare rates. You need to also compare the policy that you are receiving. Shop around on the internet and with various agents for the best policy for you.
Myth #3: All policies are the same, you are just charged more.You have to read your policy. It is a contract between you and an insurance company. It tells you what is payable and what isn’t. All policies have different features. Make sure that you have received what you were told you were getting. Make sure that all names are correctly spelled and all numbers are right. Your written policy is what matters, not your phone conversations or your agent’s promises.
There’s a very wide range of CI policies available. All will cover what are know as “Core Conditions”, which are Cancer, Stroke, Heart Attack, Coronary by-pass surgery, Kidney failure, Major organ transplant and Multiple sclerosis. Some will cover up to 30 additional conditions.At the time of purchase of the policy, the medical conditions for which you would be covered should be fully listed. Go through this carefully and make sure that you understand any exclusions within the cover.
It is essential to fill in the application form very carefully. If you fail to disclose a previous illness or condition, then you may find that the insurers will refuse to pay out. Our typical young man should be fine here, as long as he makes sure that he discloses all illnesses, no matter how minor they seemed at the time. The older you get, the more conditions and illnesses there are to remember and the greater chance you’ll forget something which you thought was trivial.
Having got CI cover sorted, this would be an excellent time for our young man to arrange some simple life insurance. Simple life insurance is reasonably priced and offers important cover. A term insurance policy will run for a set number of years. If the policyholder should die during this period, a lump sum would be paid to his dependants. Even if there are no dependants when the young man first takes this cover out, there may be loans and other debts and maybe some fairly “light” cover, for a limited term would be a good step to take. It can be topped up as circumstances change. Certainly his insurance will never be cheaper - when it comes to insurance, it’s a case of the younger the better.
Some of these other types of programs can also be less expensive, so it might be something that you are considering, in order to be sure that you have the right coverage that would cover all the necessary cost when the time comes.
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